For the past 15 years, Stop and Go Mini Mart in Bend, Ore., has been known for its old-fashioned customer service. Now it’s known for more: Its 46-tap growler station has put it on the craft-beer map, quickly turning into a franchise opportunity worth toasting.
Kent Couch, owner of Stop and Go Mini Mart and president of The Growler Guys franchise, worked as a Safeway store manager for 20 years. He transferred to an independent grocer for a short year and a half before he bought the c-store and went into business for himself.
“It was in bad shape when I bought it,” Couch says. “We pretty much had to gut the place and rebuild it.” In addition to remodeling the 4,000-square-foot store, located at the second most trafficked corner in the community, he rebranded the gas to Shell.
“We’ve been flying the Shell flag for all the years since and we’ve had great success with it,” he says.
Couch was careful to update the store to current industry trends, but he wound back the clock with his approach to customer service. He remembers advice given in one of the seminars at the fi rstNACS conference he attended.
“They said the store of the future has to stand alone and create their own atmosphere and culture,” he says. “The cookie-cutter stores are gone.”
It was through customer service that Couch found his store’s identity. He started by putting his employees in old-fashioned uniforms: military-looking pointed white hats, white shirts, pants and shoes, with black ties and belts. He requires his male employees to be clean shaven and have short hair. He used the fact that his state doesn’t allow self-service at the pump to his advantage, going all out at his 12 fueling stations. His full-service gas pumping includes automatic window washing and trash emptying, use of the customers’ names and a complimentary lollipop at the end of every transaction.
“It costs us quite a bit in uniform expenses, but I think it pays off in the end,” Couch says. “During the recession, we didn’t lose the gallons our competitors lost. Our market was hit heavily, but we didn’t suffer like the other guys did. We established our identity, and that helped set us apart.”
More Than a Smile
Couch’s customer service culture exists on the inside as well. He offers lots of incentives to employees for learning customers’ names. He finds that pays off, too.
“We’ve always had double-digit increases in our store year after year, even in tough years,” Couch says. “Earlier generations can remember that kind of customer service experience and appreciate it. For younger generations, it’s just a shock to see that level of service being delivered.”
Stop and Go Mini Mart is bursting at the seams with the volume it’s doing, he says. When the store first opened, it was doing $1.8 million in total sales annually. Now it does more than $14 million. With three registers running and lines sometimes still going out the doors, there’s not much room to grow.
Because self-service isn’t allowed in Oregon, customers don’t have to tend the pump. It frees them to venture inside the store to use the restroom and grab a snack. Couch makes sure to do his part to draw them in with his foodservice. He offers a variety of grab-and-go items, all made on-site, including burgers, barbecue pulled-pork sandwiches, Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, popular breakfast sandwiches and signature foods.
“Our signature item is chicken on a stick, chicken folded back and forth on a long skewer, an easy on-the-go meal,” Couch says. “We thought that was cool so we did meatballs on a stick and barbecue on a stick. Now we’re known for that in the community.”
The store has seating near its grab-and-go food service for roughly 20people, but employees don’t do much to encourage people to stay. Couch finds it ties up valuable parking space to have people eat inside.
Other major inside draws include a spinning wheel that allows customers to win free fast-moving items such as energy drinks and coffee, and a large beer vault.
“We’re the largest beer retailer in our market,” Couch says, “larger than any Costco or Safeway nearby.”
Getting Crafty
With the help of his son, Kizer, who has worked at the store since he was 13 years old, Couch is getting into the robust craft-beer culture in the Northwest. A year and a half ago, the store added 12 taps, but that quickly expanded to 46 when he realized the business potential.
“Our customers can’t believe they found this at a gas station,” Couch says. “They just want to know how they can get involved.”
The Growler Guys, the name of the father-son beer business, has a strong Facebook following and has sponsored community beer events to get more exposure. Already Couch and Kizer have put their growlers in a second store in Eugene, Ore., and started a franchise. There are three franchise stores in Oregon, one in Washington and four in the works. “We’ve never solicited to franchise,” Couch says. “People just come looking for it.”
The work and complexity of starting a franchise was made worth it by the clean revenue stream growlers bring in. It’s a low-labor effort and offers much higher margins than Couch is used to. It hasn’t done much to boost other inside sales, but it hasn’t hurt his packaged-beer sales at all.
Words to the Wise
Couch appreciates the freedom that comes with being an independent retailer. It allows him to teach his employees by example.
“As independents, owners can be involved and pass their passion for customer service down to their employees,” he says. “It’s got to come from the heart.”
Independence also lets Couch experiment with things such as growlers, exploring new business interests as they come along. His advice to retailers looking to get into craft beer is to become educated about their demographics first. “The 25- to 41-year-olds are key to craft beer,” he says, “as is the working professional.”
To be successful at it, you need to know about people, but you also need to know about beer. “Anybody can put a growler station in,” Couch says, “but you have to develop beer knowledge to be good at it.”
Oregon Craft Beer Market
Couch recommends taking a close look at the craft-beer market in your region before you dive in. Here’s a glance at the market in Oregon:
- In Oregon, 153 brewing companies operate 191 brewing facilities in 62 cities.
- There are now 52 breweries in Portland. That’s more than any other city in the world.
- These breweries employ 6,400 full- and part-time employees, which added 900 new jobs over the course of 2011.
- The total economic impact of Oregon’s beer industry is $2.83 billion.
- Of the 2.79 million barrels of beer consumed by Oregonians in 2012, more than 17% was made in Oregon.
Source: oregoncraftbeer.org
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